1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a form driven operating system which permits dynamic reconfiguration of the host processor into a virtual machine which supports any of a number of operating system independent data transactions, and more particularly, to a data transaction assembly server which downloads data transactions representative of different applications. The respective applications are implemented using menus which navigate the user to application specific forms which facilitate the entry of data appropriate to that application. The resulting data transactions and forms are exchanged between the form driven operating system of the host computer and a remote processor in a real-time fashion so that virtually any operating system independent software application may be implemented in which the form driven operating system is used to facilitate input, and in which the data input into the form may be processed remotely, returned as a data stream, and displayed to the user in real-time.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Point-of-entry systems have been developed which incorporate computer processing capabilities into conventional telephones. For example, a computer/telephone apparatus is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,195,130, 5,008,927, and 4,991,199 which configures a telephone as a programmable microcomputer which is operated through the standard telephone 12-key keypad. A programmable gate array is reconfigured to accommodate various types of software which require different hardware configurations but without actually reconfiguring the hardware. The reconfiguration data is received from a network host computer and is used by the programmable microcomputer to emulate the hardware of any of a plurality of service bureaus which communicate with the network host computer. In this manner, the telephone/computer is configured to communicate data to/from any of a number of different service bureaus via conventional telephone lines.
However, telephone/computer systems of the type described in the afore-mentioned patents are typically quite complicated and expensive and are limited by the types of operating software which can be downloaded from the network host computer. Also, such telephone/computer systems are relatively slow since the microcomputer must be reconfigured before it will permit communication with the requested service bureau. Because of these characteristic features, such telephone/computer systems are typically used in public locations and are not efficient for creating point-of-entry transactions in typical commercial or private settings. A point-of-entry transaction system is desired which does not have such limitations and which is operating system independent.
Elimination of the requirement of a conventional operating system, with its command interpreters, memory management functions, function schedulers, disk operation functions, and the like, to run application programs and the need to write and compile a number of individual application programs for each application implemented by the microprocessor of a data entry and/or transaction creation device would greatly decrease the cost of such a device. However, to date, this has not been possible because an operating system with the afore-mentioned features is needed to run the application programs which control the data communications and together handle discrete parts of the computer system. Unfortunately, such application programs require substantial amounts of local memory and substantial processing power for performing the desired functions. Also, the operating systems themselves tend to be quite costly to purchase and maintain.
Accordingly, a data entry system is desired which does not have the inherent limitations of conventional point-of-entry systems such as the requirement of a standard operating system for communication with a remote service bureau or file server. A data entry device and associated system is desired which performs a minimal amount of processing at the data entry device so that the data entry device may be as simple and inexpensive as possible, thereby bringing the cost of such a device into a range suitable for most commercial and private uses. It is also preferable that such a data entry device provide a wide range of functionality without requiring a complicated local operating system program and a plurality of applications programs for implementing functions other than simple hardware functions.
Typically, a microprocessor is viewed to be a general purpose computer which is modified by application programs into a special purpose computer. In other words, when an application program is loaded into and running on a host processor, the application program reconfigures the host processor into a special purpose computer whose function is determined by that application program. Unfortunately, to be able to run on a host computer, the application programs must be written in accordance with the protocols of the operating system loaded onto the host processor, such as Windows.TM. 3.11, Windows95.TM., DOS.TM., and the like. Typically, these operating systems require a great amount of memory and utilize a great deal of processor overhead to operate efficiently.
More recently, the application programs have been written in an operating system independent language developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. known as JAVA. JAVA is a compiler with its own memory management and run-time module which can be adapted to each host processor and is thus independent of the host processor and the host processor's operating system. However, JAVA requires the application program to be compiled in JAVA. This individually compiled application program is then useable on any computer that has a JAVA enabler for executing the JAVA program. Hence, even with JAVA, specific application dependent programs must be written and then individually compiled. A simplified operating system environment is desired which allows dynamic reconfiguring of the host processor for each application without requiring the programming and compilation of code at the host processor for each application.
The present invention has been designed to meet these needs in the art.